This is Love?
by Kenworth
Summary: The peculiar case of Sodom and its legacy. PG-13 for sex, rape and incest (hey, I didn't make it up!)
1. Where Angels Fear to Tread

Disclaimer: I'm putting this part up first; I'll talk about some of my   
motivations in the next chapters. I was going to say the Bible doesn't belong   
to me, and then I decided it was semantically problematic. I have $700 worth of   
art criticism books, a bottle of Vicodin, and a t-shirt with the complete text   
of "Twelfth Night," in case God or Moses wants to sue. It might help to read   
Genesis 13-19, which is the inclusive discussion of Sodom and Gomorrah; I use   
the KJV as my reference, although I cross checked with the NIV on some verses.   
  
Where Angels Fear to Tread  
  
You do not know my name. Perhaps it is best; you would not recognize it as one   
of your own, I do not think. Nor have I kept it; it belongs to a place of   
obliteration and a time long ago.  
  
But you have stolen even my town's name. Sodom. I say the word, feel it heavy   
on my tongue like the smoke and ashes that filled my nose and throat that day.   
The burned place. As if that was all we ever were. And you have taken that   
name, and used it to describe the acts you find most foul, to dwell on them in   
lurid detail in your laws and in your sermons.  
  
I was still very young then. Oh, I had lived enough years to know of war, to   
know of the fear that locks the throat and freezes the heart and to see my   
neighbor-brothers disappear behind tribal lines and never come home. I had   
lived enough years to comfort my mother after the delivery of a stillborn son,   
blue and bloody, and I was not quite so innocent as to have missed the shadowed   
looks of men. I was betrothed then, my sister and I both were, although such   
mattered little. We were, after all, our righteous father's property. Yet we   
were also our mother's joys, in those earliest days. She taught us well, with   
what she knew, and whispered the secrets of womanhood in our ears, as she taught   
us the laws of hospitality and grace. And she was my world: what she did was   
right, what she said was right. My beloved em.  
  
I have sometimes been told that our punishment was a result of our arrogance,   
our lack of charity for the needy. And here I am today, wandering in this land   
that proclaims itself, with pride, to be "under God," in the lisping voices of   
your babies, a land that claims most particular blessings in song. And yet. .   
.and yet. This is a land now under the veiled threat of war, and I am told by   
your great righteous leaders, Mr. Bush and Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Rumsfeld, and   
Reverend Falwell and Reverend Robertson and their supporters that in times of   
war, one must make exceptions. In times of war, it has become acceptable to   
this land to arrest people on suspicion and hold them without bond, without   
attorneys, without contact to the outside world, and secretly try them or deport   
them. And thus has it ever been. For too many times, someone had sheltered a   
houseguest and watched in horror as he turned spy or thief. Too many times, in   
leaning over to give assistance to those on the street, a seeming cripple   
suddenly brandished a knife.  
  
Our mother taught us not to be reduced by such evil. We ever kept a full table   
and invited guests to join us (is this what sealed our fate, this desire to   
nurture on the part of my mother?). To break bread with someone is to seal your   
fate with his forever. And yet at the same time, she told us not to blame our   
neighbors for their fears, nor judge them, but to simply live quietly and   
rightly ourselves.   
  
And where was God then? Leading Uncle Abram (really my great-uncle) around the   
desert and pulling a few strings so Aunt Sarai could have her baby, no matter   
how old she may be. And yet. . .and yet. I have no great love for my aunt.   
She was not what my mother taught me a woman could be; she knew not how to share   
her heart. She arranged for that poor servant girl to bear a child for her and   
sent my uncle to Hagar's bed. Then, after the act, her heart grew still colder   
and she cast her out. I heard, later, that Aunt Sarai sputtered to Uncle Abram   
,"I have given my maid into thy bosom, when she saw that she had conceived, I   
was despised in her eyes." Who was despised? As if it were all Hagar's fault.   
We heard no reports that Hagar had been rude or disobedient; just that her eyes   
smoldered, sometimes fiery with heat, sometimes filmed with tears as she lay her   
brown hands upon her belly. As my mother said, shaking her head, it is not for   
the powerful to despise, but to have mercy in all times. But Sarai cast her   
out, and Hagar wept along the road, until, she said, an Angel appeared and told   
her to go home and meekly bear her mistress' orders, and one day Hagar too would   
be mother to a great land.   
  
My mother, unable to bear a son, admitted to me once that she had thought of   
this, but could not, after having seen her sons dead and buried, ask even the   
lowliest slave girl to have a son and give it up. But if she had, I cannot   
believe she would have sent our father to the girl with no warning, or that she   
would ever have removed her from the house. She would have rejoiced in it and   
tried to share, her strong hands on the belly, making sure she took enough rest.   
I am glad, now and then and forever, to have been a daughter loved for those   
short years.   
  
My uncle, however, is in many ways, a good man, and I have loved him well in my   
time. He has done things I would not have; I shudder to the core when I think   
of bound Isaac, and the God who would test his fine servant in such a way. My   
mother would have shuddered in horror at such; why would one ever demand such a   
thing? My uncle is a brave man, too. And I have come to understand that it was   
my uncle who begged for mercy for our city. "Shall not the Judge of all the   
earth do right?" He was luckier than many, perhaps, truly a favored one, not to   
be punished for such questions. Perhaps this lack of chastisement for such a   
question is God's only idea of mercy, so small and hard.   
  
Mercy. When I was very young, my sister and I quarreled over a trinket. She   
struck me and I pulled her hair and my mother grabbed us and whisked us apart,   
throwing the little toy away. Later that night, when my sister was asleep and   
our fight was almost forgotten, as such quarrels are, my mother lifted me from   
my pallet and held a light above my sister as she slept, so that I could see the   
soft rise and fall of her breaths, her small round face and tiny hands folded   
beneath her cheeks.  
  
"You are bigger than she is, my darling," she whispered. "You must never hurt   
her, or be quick to anger, because you are older and know better. You must   
always be patient, and look for a way to forgive."  
  
Perhaps Father heard her, too, and that was why he was eager to bring in the   
Angels, and ordered us about, demanding a great feast for the guests. They   
seemed oddly remote, although they were beautiful as well. Too beautiful,   
unreal.  
  
And then the mob came.   
  
The Angels were tall and thin and very cold. I waited and waited for one of   
them to protest this thing my father had said, but they merely stared, their   
arms folded across their chests. Only our mother wept and wailed, screaming at   
my father not to do this wicked deed. "These are your children," she sobbed,   
even as he shoved her to the floor. "Your children you have offered to be   
degraded, and abused."  
  
My father snarled at her to be quiet and the Angels stood by. Outside, the mob   
had become quieter, listening. Then, in a halting voice, clearing his throat,   
one man said, "'S'all right, ma'am. We'll not be taking the girls. We've no   
call to do such wickedness." He looked at my father then, witheringly, and   
several of the other men turned their heads away.  
  
Now, I do not deny that there were men in that crowd ready to do evil. Great   
evil, with little attention to who suffered. They had been at war, and that is   
what war does, now and ever. Perhaps it is necessary; how else to kill a man,   
except to harden one's heart past normal human judgment? There were those in   
that crowd eager to punish, to hurt and defile, and had myself or my sister   
fallen into their hands, it would be no different than what they might have done   
to the Angels.   
  
My father sputtered. "I, wicked? I, who am visited by angels, I whose own   
uncle is God's chosen one? When you have to come to my house, and made such   
demands?"  
  
The man who had spoken before stepped forward. He looked weary and sad and his   
face was battle-scarred. "You have come here, Lot, and you have claimed power   
over us, and because we were grateful for your uncle's aid, we have let it pass.   
But this is our city. We have been at war, a war in which you have had no sons   
to lose. And you bring strangers into our city, and you value these strangers   
over us, even over your own daughters, who you would see shamed before us."  
  
My mother nodded through her tears, still bleeding from the force of my father's   
blow. "He is a good man," she whispered. "Let him talk to the visitors."  
  
"There are no good men here," my father hissed. "Foul, perverted--"  
  
"You came here," my mother said in a low voice, her hand cupped to her cheek.   
He raised his arm as if to strike her again and she recoiled, and he let his   
hand fall to the side. I could hear him muttering what he thought of the men of   
the mob, words I barely knew that made me blush to hear from my father's lips.  
  
I leaned slightly forward, from where I still shuddered in the corner, my arms   
around my sister. "You will not let them be hurt unjustly?" I asked the   
spokesman.  
  
He looked at me sadly. "I can try to control the men. But in these times. . ."   
he sighed. "If these men are the enemy, than there is much bloodshed   
unequalled."   
  
And I was old enough to see his meaning. Such acts, when they come to pass,   
have nothing to do with love or passion or creation; the body becomes merely a   
tool, a weapon, and the body pressed against it is something else altogether.   
It would have been another act in the war.  
  
A young man from the edge of the crowd, who had been silent until now, began   
screaming, "We need to know!" Other confused voices came from behind, and my   
mother , limping and bleeding, hustled us inside, while the voices grew in   
volume to a roar. My betrothed and that of my sisters were still cowered   
inside. My sister and I went to the window just in time to see a huge explosion   
of light that made us turn our heads and some cries of pain and horror. "What.   
. ." I asked before I realized that the angels had struck them blind. I hoped   
it wasn't permanent, as they limped away, holding hands or leaning on each   
other's shoulders.  
  
The Angels and my father came inside; Father barely looked at Em. Instead he   
announced, "We're leaving."   
  
I wasn't even sure exactly what he meant, but my mother wailed. "This is our   
home!" she cried, "We can't just leave and hope for something better.  
  
"No," said one of the Angels in his terrible voice; it was low in pitch yet   
perfectly clear. "For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is   
waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy   
it."  
  
My mother cried out again.   
  
"Woman," the other one said. "Do not weep, it is time for your daughters to   
marry."  
  
"What?" she exclaimed.   
  
My father nodded. "Yes, let's get on with it."  
  
I had always imagined my wedding with the traditions; not just for me, but for   
my sister Zofit and my mother as well. But instead we were quickly led in the   
words, while my mother sobbed in the background. Zofit cried, too, but I could   
not. And we were respectable wedded women less than a hour after being offered   
to the mob.   
  
After vows were exchanged, my father said impatiently, "We must ready what we   
can, to leave at dawn."  
  
My new husband laughed. "To leave? Lot, are you mad? This is where I live;   
where I've always lived, my family's house."  
  
Zofit's husband agreed, "Are you worried about the mob? They won't bother you   
again, I'm sure. Come, you know it has been hard times lately, but there are   
things we can do. And when the threat of war passes, most of the men will   
return to ordinary lives."  
  
Quiet Zofit even said, "And we could help more. Bring food to those poor babies   
and widows."  
  
Her husband said, nodding, "Yes, of course. I know the city has fallen since   
the war, but surely we don't deserve to die for that!"  
  
"The mob last night -- " I tried to explain. "They've been at war, and they've   
hurt and been hurt, and they thought you were spies, and it would all begin   
again."  
  
"This is a city of depravity," said one of the Angels. "Every word you say goes   
to show it more, that you do not see."  
  
"I live here!" I cried rashly as my husband tried to calm me. "Of course I can   
see. People have done bad things, but they can do good things again!"  
  
"What is, is, what's done is done," intoned one of the Angels. He looked out   
the window. The night had mostly passed. "We will leave now."  
  
"I'm sorry, Lot, I'm not going," said my husband, who gently embraced me. "I   
understand if you must go, but I will keep you here with me if you choose."   
  
Zofit's husband nodded. He was even younger, much more boy than man, but he   
bowed to my father and said that this is where he would live, with or without   
Zofit.  
  
The Angels seemed impatient, an emotion ill-suited to cold, sacrosanct   
creatures. One of them even seemed a little afraid; I wonder now if he thought   
God would punish him for failing to save the whole family.  
  
"Let us go," one of the Angels said. "Lot, your wife, and your daughters,   
married or no. And hurry!"  
  
Yet even my father hesitated a moment, and the Angels grabbed us each roughly by   
the hand and began to run, dragging us behind. Zofit and I could not have   
protested or escaped; the grip was too firm. Our husbands seemed to understand;   
there was no reproach in their eyes as they watched us go.  
  
They dragged us far from the city gates, to where God would speak to my father.   
We were told to wait a few steps away; the Lord had nothing to say to us.  
  
"Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain;   
escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed," I heard him say. My mother was   
still weeping and short of breath from the run, and Zofit was trying to comfort   
her. When we heard this, however, she wept even harder. "Not even to say good-  
bye? It's hateful," she sobbed, with a bitterness I had never heard in her   
voice before. Soon mine would become the same.  
  
For as you may know, my mother did look back, just a glance over her shoulder   
while running. To this day I am not sure if after glancing back she stopped to   
stare in horror, or if it merely seemed like this because the punishment was   
meted out so quickly. But of all a sudden, she was gone.   
  
And I was so alone.  
  
  
To this day, I am not sure why I did what I did. My body was still spotted with   
burns from the brimstone God had rained down; smoke still filled my throat and   
nostrils and stung my eyes. While running, struggling to breathe, I had bitten   
my lip too hard, and blood filled my mouth as well. Father was determined to   
stay away from a city, which I cannot blame him for, even though that was all he   
had wanted before. After all, no matter what we did, it would be no promise.   
How could there be promises ever again?  
  
I lay on the cold cave floor, my younger sister hovered over me, trying to tend   
my burns with cloths dipped in cool water. Her face was still streaked with   
tears and soot as she tended me and eventually lay down beside me. Our father   
sat in the corner, mumbling to himself.  
  
And I began to think it. I thought of my mother, dead, lost, as a mere token to   
God. Punished forever for who she was -- a woman who could not turn her back on   
any troubled soul, a woman who kept house and hearth faithfully and wanted only   
a moment to say good-bye. I thought of my father, offering my sister and me as   
toys to appease the crowd, thought of us torn between multiple men, strange   
sweaty hands over my thighs and breasts, where no hands but my own had ever   
been. I thought of the Angels, cold and hot together, and how they had made me   
feel.  
  
We had wine that we had brought with us when we left Zoar and came to the   
mountains, still shell-shocked and filthy. My hands trembled as I opened a jug   
and sipped, the wine tasting sour to my smoke-stained lips. But I was so cold,   
and I felt the familiar warmth settle down into my stomach. Perhaps then I   
should have realized another fire was burning, burning within me for all time   
now. My body was strange to me as if I could see myself move and not know why.   
I whispered in my baby sister's ear "Come, let us make our father drink wine,   
and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the seed of our father." Oh,   
forgive me, Zofit! Forgive me, Em! I don't know what I thought. Perhaps I was   
thinking of you, Em, and all the dead sons, and Sarai and Hagar. Perhaps I   
really did want to bring a son in the world in your name. Or possibly, as I am   
shamed to admit, I wanted my father to feel some kind of suffering or fear, the   
way Zofit and I felt in the hall as he bargained for our rape. I don't know.   
Perhaps they were right about us, that we are a city out of control, mad-driven   
by lust. Were a city. Now ashes.  
  
Or perhaps I wanted, for a moment, to play the judge, to be the one to punish.   
After all, who was in the cave but us? Did not my father bear some   
responsibility when he did not recognize me, only grabbed and groaned and did   
not notice when I had gone? This is your most righteous man, Judge of all the   
Earth? Tricked by the mere slip of a girl he had so eagerly bargained away for   
a stranger? The more fool he, and the more fool you.  
  
As women do, I disappeared after I had born my son. I thought then to die. But   
for whatever reason, God has not made it thus. Whether it is a blessing or a   
curse I do not know. God's self-chosen now speak of hell and fire lustily, with   
the same lurid eagerness I felt in the destruction of my city. In a people   
denied other passions, this is perhaps inevitable, as is the satisfaction taken   
in the idea of such punishments. Yet for me there has been no such end.   
  
Instead I have drifted, and watched my city and my people burn a thousand times.   
Men charging into the Holy Land, proclaiming a crusade in God's name while they   
raped and destroyed. Christian soldiers marching onward, giving blankets   
infected with dread disease to a native, different people. Execution by a   
sudden jolt of inner fire, as the body quivers and smolders and threatens to   
become enflamed. The camps where so many millions burned in ovens, while people   
learned to breathe the air filled with perpetual smoke of their neighbor's   
flesh. Mushroom shaped clouds over a far-off city, spreading not only death by   
flame to the skin, but setting off fires inside of people, burning their bodies   
from the inside out, over hours or even months. A city in a land long   
accustomed to safety suddenly brought to its knees, again in flame. And I am   
always there.  
  
I wonder, perhaps, if my uncle's words have come back to haunt his God. "Shall   
not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Perhaps there is a corner in which   
even He must wonder about his actions. If He created us, if He is our Father,   
how could he ever set himself to such destruction? How could he be worse than a   
man at war, who may suffer ever after from the memory of seeing another man die   
under his hand? Could our sins, no matter what they may have been, truly been   
worse than the one who does such a deed?   
  
I have sometimes been told about "free will." Where was ours? Could He not   
have given us time, or guidance, or any kind of love? Why did He have nothing   
to offer but fire? Why was He so impatient to see us dead?  
  
And I think that this may be why he has left me to wander, because He dares not   
bring me to His face, even for a moment, to see the condemnation in my eyes.   
For He has done great wrong. And He must know it. 


	2. Straight to the Source

Author's notes:  
To begin with, as this subject came up not long ago, I obviously have a certain amount of vested interest in this story, since this is the basis most often cited for the Christian condemnation of homosexuality. It is a story that makes my Christian friends terribly uncomfortable, both for that reason and for the larger meaning; it is, in their opinion, a particularly hateful picture of God (they also have the same problem with Noah and the Flood and the murder of the first born sons of Egypt). Before I begin my discussion of the actual Biblical text and the interpretive problems there, I'd like to clarify my intentions and my own bias (or lens, if you will).  
  
One: to me, it is extremely problematic that in the same breath we say Lot is a righteous man, he offers his daughters up to be raped. I just can't wrap my mind around it; even when I accept that women were considered chattel in that period, I still hear modern preachers tell the same story without a consideration for that. And even worse, I had never heard of the father/daughter incest at the end, and that seems to be okay too, and that really bothers me. That is what led me to try to write a story about Lot's elder daughter; I felt it was an important voice. I may not be the best person to give it that, but I wanted to give it a try.  
  
Two: I'm coming from the angle that the idea that the story is about consensual homosexual activity doesn't make sense based on the text. It is obviously rape, unless the angels wanted to go out and mingle and Lot wouldn't let them (hmm, maybe I'll write that version next time). But I also became fascinated by the idea that "to know" could be very literal; to interrogate the angels and see if they were spies, since Sodom had just been at war. In order to do that, I deviated from the pure "evil" of the story, or at least diluted it; if that kind of suspicion is so evil, God help us in America since 9/11. I created a citizen of Sodom who may have done evil things while at war, but was not entirely evil, in my opinion, in order to see what could happen there.   
  
Three: I really wanted to create Lot's wife, since all we get is that she disobeys and turns into a pillar of salt. Again, I may be the last person qualified to write mother/daughter situations, but I tried to make the mother (Em, which is sort of a Hebrew transliteration of Mama) a good and strong woman. I don't know, I guess I see her act as a really reasonable one. Seriously, God couldn't wait two more seconds? I see little virtue in arbitrary obedience.   
  
Four: Lastly, I remain really moved by the verse "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25) I think it is really crucial that Abraham asks this question, which took courage, and frankly, I would like to hear God' honest answer. But irritatingly, they go off on this bargaining game that Abraham wins, so only 10 righteous people need to be found, and that worked so well. But I like Abram/Abraham for the most part. Sure, he screws up a few times and he stands by and watches his wife become a vindictive shrew, causing him to banish his own son. Then God wants to test him by asking to sacrifice his own son. But thoughout it, Abraham seems to hold together okay, as a character. I tried to show that, a little (my affection for Abraham, not his accomplishments, since that would have deviated from the text a lot).  
  
But simply that line "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" was what haunted me and changed my story from what I originally meant to write, which was much more focused on Lot and the mob. That it is actually said, and then dropped, makes me have even more questions, if even God (or whoever wrote the Bible, depending on your viewpoint) saw that there might be wrong there. And that's where I really took off, the battle between Lot's eldest and God.   
  
So enough about me, let's talk text.  
  
This is a story in which the issue of translation is a huge question. It is worth noting, I feel, that Sodom and Gomarrah are not likely to have been actual place names; they seem quite obviously derived from words describing their fate: the Hebrew word (transliterated; I don't have a Hebrew font) "s'dom," which means "burnt" and "Amorah," which means "a ruined heap." Also, it is interesting to note that although Genesis focuses on Sodom, in Deuteronomy 29, there are four cities listed: Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zedoim (I don't know if the latter names have a specific derivation). The verse there that I find most striking is ". . .which the Lord overthrew in his anger and his wrath." I frankly don't see that this is much to rejoice in, this self-described jealous God who regularly destroys His own creation when it takes a turn He doesn't like. And really, that's what seems to occupy Him for a significant part of Genesis. But to me, it is very significant that the name "Sodom" and all its derivatives (sodomy, sodomite (more fundamentalist works, like Chick tracts, often capitalize it, which is grammatically indefensible, unless you mean "someone who comes from the city of Sodom,") sodomize) come after the event. I think that people have gotten sloppy in their thinking, and infer that because we created the word sodomy in reference to that story, that the word clearly describes what happened there, when the text is extremely questionable.   
  
I feel really ridiculous even typing this out, but it seems to be a source of confusion. So here we go: not all gay sex is sodomy, and not all sodomy is gay sex. Not even all gay male sex is sodomy. And this is just part of how strained this argument is. The word was coined based on an adjective that has nothing to do with the act itself, and doesn't precede the events in question.   
  
The next translation issue is the sticky question of the verb "to know." Amusingly, the Hebrew word can be transliterated as "ya'da" or "yadah" (as in, yadda yadda yadda?). This is the word in the Hebrew text of Genesis 19:5, translated in the KJV as "And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out to us, that we may know them." The New International Version translates the verse as "They called to Lot, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight?" Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." (Is it just me, or is that really strangely phrased or parsed? It's a bad translation, just in terms of sound -- it's an odd convolution of spoken language with formal structure. I'm beginning to get why my roommate really doesn't like the NIV.).  
  
According to my research, which relies on other figures (not a personal count), this Hebrew word appears over 900 times in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament). And in the vast majority of these cases, it means to know a fact. There are only about a dozen, less then twenty, instances, in which it refers to sexual activity, and in those situations, it almost always refers to sex which leads to the conception of a child. It never, other than this questionable case, refers to homosexual activity, and there are other Hebrew words that would specify this better. So it seems to me to be an awfully large leap to infer that the verb in this context can only and specifically mean sex.  
  
Therefore, some alternatives have been proposed, besides the NIV translation, which presumes (consensual?) homosexual intercourse. Considering that Sodom had just been at war, it seems quite possible to me that "to know" could mean "to interrogate" or some similar meaning aimed at determining whether the angels were spies or other dangerous enemies. Considering the acts of the US government in the past year, I don't think we can be too judgmental about such an assumption on the part of the citizens (anyone know where Jose Padilla is right now?).   
  
Now, if the angels were assumed to be enemies, it is also quite possible that there is an implication of gang rape. Historically, it has been established that this was a weapon used to humiliate men in that society, and really, most societies -- it's still happening in the prison system, and there haven't been any real efforts to combat that (I could go on a riff about the failure of the American penal system, but I'll resist, for the moment). The Soviet labor camps were notorious for this; this wasn't just an ancient tribal ritual. Now, examining such rapes as a weapon and an act of warlike violence should lead us to some conclusions. As many criminologists, psychologists, etc. now say, "Rape is a crime of violence in which sex is the weapon." Rape is not about sexual desire; it is about power. The fact that we have gained some appreciation of this has led us to, at least legally, stop making such galling assumptions as that a woman in a short skirt was "asking" to be raped, and that men have uncontrollable urges that women must try not to attract. (Although I don't want to imply that rape is definitively male/female; it can occur between any combination of genders (yes, that includes female/male). But because it is perceived as being a crime of men against women, and is most common as such, the most dangerous stereotypes grew out of that mindset. I personally believe that in order to reduce rape, there needs to be much greater education among men then there currently is. But again, that's another topic). However, this thinking has not led us to the obvious conclusion that consensual homosexual intercourse bears no more resemblance to prison rape than does sex between a happily married couple and what happens to a woman assaulted by a stranger in a parking garage. They simply are not the same thing, and if this passage is implying forced sexual intercourse, that is wrong on its own merits. (Later on, when I look at the Chick tracts on this topic, I will discuss the hateful and incorrect conflation of homosexuality with pedophilia often perpetrated by Christians in this discussion).  
  
And then, the problem which led to my story: Lot offering his virgin daughters to the crowd. On the one hand, reading as a historically literate person, I can understand that in that era and culture, women were seen as property, yadda yadda yadda (get it?). But most fundamentalist and contemporary retellings of the story don't address that, either. In fact, I searched and could not find ANY explanation that did not offer a counter-argument to the piece as a whole. Nor does God object to this action, since he saves Lot anyway. The most righteous man in the city offers his daughters to be gang-raped. Lovely little morality tale!   
  
It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense, for numerous reasons. One, rape of a daughter was seen as an incredibly shameful thing for the family (not out of concern, of course, merely that it made her unmarriageable, damaged goods. But this is an overall historical stereotype; I'm not using it on its own to say the Old Testament is not terribly moral). The story of Dinah later in Genesis is pretty clear (and another truly bizarre episode, in which Dinah's brothers trick the entire population of the city into converting (what a charming example of witnessing!), which requires them to be circumcised, and every man in the city does so. And while they are, er, recovering, from this operation without benefit of modern medicine, the brothers attack and kill everyone. Seriously, couldn't this be the plot of a bad porn film? The story is retold in the interesting novel "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant; my roommate's mother and three sisters insisted he read it, and I read it with him in a show of solidarity or something (you know, all those creepy girly bits about menstruation, because you know, all men live in absolute terror of that, because really women are kind of yucky. Or so I've been told; maybe it's because I'm gay I can see all these stupid jokes about wacky female hormones and men trying to buy tampons for their wives or something and go "eh." Anyway. It's an excellent example of sort of "professional" fanfiction, or the Hebrew tradition of midrach, which set about illuminating missing parts of the Scripture. Definitely worth a read.  
  
But in spite of all that, Lot was willing to hand over his virgin daughters, and that proves what a good man he was. (You know, I think I would like the story better if the angels had done something when Lot said that. Or if they had seemed willing to go in the girls' stead. I mean, two verse later they smote everyone with blindness; it's not like they couldn't defend themselves.). And isn't sex outside of marriage fornication, and also bad? Has does Lot's act possibly reconcile with all the other laws proscribing sexual behavior? This wouldn't be so bad in another context, but considering that this man is being held up as incredibly righteous and good, this is just offensive.   
  
It also seems to me pretty hypocritical for Christians to say that "sex outside of marriage is always bad, but it's less bad between people who actually could get married," (which is the essence of condemning sodomy and not fornication). If anything, shouldn't it be the other way around? You can choose marriage; I can't (at least not one that the state or many people will recognize). But then there are a dozen other reasons why this doesn't make sense.   
  
First, we get another translation issue: was the crowd all the people of Sodom, or all the men of Sodom? The KJV is ambiguous (refers to men, then "all the people") while the NIV implies an all male mob of every man and boy in Sodom. It is not specific in the Hebrew, and this is an instance where this might matter. There's an amusing quote from the National Gay Pentecostal Alliance: "This alone tells us that the traditionalists were wrong about the intent of this mob: if you're planning a homosexual orgy, you don't bring the wife and kids!"   
  
And now things get really complicated. Was the entire city made up of homosexuals? This leads to a tricky set of semantics: is homosexuality an act, or is it an identity? We still haven't figured this one out; this is one of the major issues with so-called "reparative therapy." If you are attracted to the same sex, but have not acted on such attraction, are you homosexual? Does it make a difference if you have been entirely chaste, or if you have pursued members of the other gender despite your lack of attraction to them? What if you're attracted to both genders, but have only acted on that attraction towards one? And if homosexuality is defined by action, how much action does it take? Is holding hands or kissing enough, or does it have to be sex? Does it have to be sodomy (um, some lesbians might take issue with that, I guess!)? Are thoughts actions? Fantasizing about a same-sex encounter? Reading slash? And if you can be homosexual without ever having taken part in a homosexual action (if thoughts are not the same as action), how does that work with a doctrine of "hate the sin, love the sinner"? When does it start to be sin? The moment the thought crosses your mind? Are all thoughts about the topic automatically designated as lust? My bias here is probably apparent, but I've done my best to play from both sides. I identify as gay, although my physical experience is very, very limited. In fact, based on the stories I've heard about youth groups (from people who were in such groups), the average WWJD t-shirt wearing Christian my age has seen a lot more action than I have (this is not necessarily to imply sex, although I do know many unmarried Christian teenagers who have had sex, but still feel qualified to preach about how unnatural homosexuality is. Anyone see the Chicago season of "The Real World," where the preacher's son went on and on about how he knows homosexuality is wrong because it says so in the Bible (but two men together are disgusting, while two women together are beautiful, which is the classiest of all classy arguments), and then brought home a bunch of strange girls and had an orgy in the hot tub? At least the Mormon girl a few seasons back seemed to walk the walk.) Obviously this is only anecdotal, but considering how high-and-mighty some people get, it seems to me to be a valid observation.   
  
Anyway, it seems pretty obvious that the town wasn't made up of exclusive, full-time homosexuals (the kind with an Agenda! who Recruit! I'm still waiting for my t-shirt.). Aside from the weirdness of that (and since Lot settled there, wouldn't he have noticed?), we're told in many verses that one of the non-sexy, non-lurid, and therefore non-publicized by the Christian Right sins of Sodom was neglect of widows and orphans, which implies a pretty typical heterosexual social structure. And then, if the whole mob was gay, why didn't Lot offer his future sons-in-law? Legally, he probably had that power. If his objective was to protect the angels at any cost, it might have been an option. The immediate argument to that, I suppose, is that Lot was really anti-homosexual intercourse, and so he couldn't do that. But again, if the mob was just gunning for gay sex, why did he offer his daughters at all? Did he know the offer wouldn't be accepted in the first place? Did he think that to this violent crowd, ANY sex would be acceptable, which seems to go back to the implication of rape and forced intercourse?   
  
And of course, there were sons-in-law to be, so obviously marriage was a normal institution. This is not to say that people who are married can't (by which I mean literally, not morally) engage in homosexual activity; it is well documented that many people have done this. But it does complicate the same old story of "Sodom was full of [insert your choice of anti-gay slur], so God destroyed it, because He hated them that much." (By the way, is everyone here aware of where the word "faggot" comes from? Bundles of kindling, basically, to be consumed by fire?).   
  
From the research I've done, and basically from the text itself, I tend to feel that there is a very strong suggestion of rape in the story, and I simply see no reason to assume that being anti (homosexual) rape means being anti-homosexual. There is no justification for the idea that the desire to "know" the angels was mutual, in which case it seems clearly to have been rape, and I suppose that if there were a crime or sin for which I could see wiping out a city, it would be engaging in regular mass rape; how truly awful. Of course, there have been lots of examples of institutionalized rape throughout history, of which Christians are not completely innocent.   
  
There are some other arguments, as well. One is that the story condemns bestiality, since angels are not human, and that the New Testament verse Jude 7 refers to this in the Greek expression "sarkos heteras," which means "other flesh." I find this a bit weak, but Jude is worth some scrutiny. Various translations have described this as fornication, homosexuality, lust of every kind, unnatural lust, sexual immorality, yadda yadda yadda. Ironically, "heteras," of course, is the root of the word heterosexual (being attracted, literally, to other flesh, is it not? The flesh (gender) that is other than your own?). The bestiality argument may be weak, but the argument that the author of Jude can only be referring to homosexuality, based on the Greek, is even weaker.  
  
The most common liberal argument other than the mass rape one is that Sodom was punished for its lack of charity and compassion toward strangers, the poor, the sick, the weak and otherwise disadvantaged. I've never found this completely convincing either, I'm afraid. For one thing, if I believe in God, I'd like to believe in one who has some sense of irony. Dumping fire and brimstone (sulfur, basically) on a town from above to punish the inhabitants for poor citizenship is dubious at best; God is a pretty poor leader if that's the best he can do. And it seems pretty arbitrary, in a lot of ways. Obviously my view is covered by the fact that Christianity in America has pretty much been seized by the political right, who in my opinion have done a pretty awful job at providing ways to assist the disadvantaged, and have taken some stances that I find pretty hard to reconcile with the Christian ideals of universal love or compassion. It is also incredibly arbitrary; without details, it's hard to believe that Sodom was that bad, in terms of neighborliness, especially considering they had just been at war; I'm not sure we'd get any prizes for that right now. And later in the Old Testament, the Israelites are encouraged in some pretty horrific behaviors towards outsiders. So, interesting as this theory might be, I can't see a way that it comes out as an argument for a just and compassionate God; he seems to have picked on Sodom for some unknown reason, done little to help them (why didn't he ask angels to go around to the whole town and teach?) and kills off the entire population, which presumably includes babies (just like the Flood!) in a particularly gruesome way. And to top it off, he gives an arbitrary order to Lot's family, and when his wife looks back she turns into a pillar of salt. That's just great. Sign me up for allegiance to this guy, pronto.   
  
In reference to the Bible itself, we can always go back and look at other references to the story, although this is when one all too frequently finds contradictions. But there are quite a few references to Sodom in the Bible and in some other Jewish texts. Looking at the latter, the expression "middat Sdom" is often used; this would translate to something like "as the people of Sodom thought," and was used as a condemnation or caution, specifically in terms of providing charity and hospitality. It does not seem to have been used to refer to sex.   
  
In the Bible, there are several different mentions of Sodom: one is in the first chapter of Isaiah, which condemns Judah and compares it with Sodom and Gomarrah, mentioning many sins: idolatry, rebelling against God, deserting God, engaging in meaningless religious rituals, being unjust and oppressive, committing several specific crimes (murder, accepting bribery), etc. Yet no mention of homosexuality, or any specifically sexual act. Jeremiah and Ezekial also contain passages which condemn Sodom and list specific reasons. Jeremiah cites lying, abetting evil and adultery (which could include homosexual activity, but by no means specifies it). Ezekial 16:49-50 reads: "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned [why does this sound SO much like what many critics say about contemporary America?]; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." Again, I suppose that some might include homosexuality as a "detestable thing," but it isn't limited to such. Some of the Christian theologians or fundamentalists must have thought an awful lot about sodomy, because they find it in a lot of places it doesn't exist. And the emphasis is clearly on the first three failings: arrogance, greed and lack of compassion.   
  
Jesus himself implies the hospitality argument in Matthew 10:14-15; a parallel passage occurs in Luke. He tells his followers to go out and preach, and that anyone who does not welcome them is worse off than the people of Sodom were.  
  
2 Peter, chapter 2, is an odd chapter. In reference to Sodom and Gomarrah, the implications seems to be that God destroyed the cities as an example to those who follow ungodly ways, which once again, lacks specificity. There is also the implication later on that children pay for the sins of their parents, a notion I've never been fond of.  
  
In fact, the verse from Jude I discussed earlier is notable for its insistence on sexuality. So where are we getting all this from?  
  
In the next chapter, I'm going to critique several tracts of Jack Chick on this very topic, because the more I study this, the more I come to question the legitimacy of the conservative interpretation. It doesn't fit historically. It doesn't fit logically. It doesn't fit the rest of the Bible.   
  
And there seems to me to be an unavoidable parallel, not between gays today and the citizens of Sodom, but between the citizens of Sodom and the Christians who even today have called out to publicly shame or abuse those of us who are, for whatever reasons, strangers in a strange land.  
  
Links:  
http://www.people.virginia.edu/%7Epm9k/Writings/sodom.html  
Geology and Sodom and Gomorrah   
  
http://www.mindspring.com/~kantwesley/Projects/SodomGommorah.html  
Scroll down for a particularly mean-spirited interpretation. I think I will limit myself to the observation that I am gay, and I am perfectly able to distinguish between a woman and a telephone pole.  
  
http://www.covenantnews.com/baldwin011002.htm   
More historical revisionism; the author conveniently neglects the Treaty of Tripoli, aside from various other documents. The United States made a special covenant with God? And the Founding Fathers all believed this? I guess that's why they actually bothered to specify against the creation of a state church. I find the title pretty funny -- God forbid that!  
  
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htm As always, a lovely compendium of argument, with solid quotes and citations, as well as a tendency to go back to the original texts. There is also a specific discussion of Sodom and Gomorrah, and they even use my yadda yadda joke! http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibg.htm The discussion about same-sex relationships in the Bible is worth a read, if only for the clear evidence of a modern translation purposely changing the text: The Living Bible changes a passage in which Jonathan and David "kiss and wept together," is changed to them shaking hands. Give me a break. Kissing, in historical context, doesn't necessarily prove anything here, but that's just indefensible, for people who argue for Biblical inerrancy: Although I just reread the various Jonathan and David chapters, and -- hmmm. There's some strange writing there. I don't think we can know for sure, but you have to do some fast-talking to make that relationship completely platonic, because the dialogue and actions attributed to them just don't add up. I'll try to add a chapter about this, for clarity's sake.   
  
As a side note, it was from my friend Camilla, not that site, that I first heard the reversal of the typical Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve argument (like, ha ha, not). Obviously if this couple is supposed to reproduce, they need to be heterosexual. No one is pretending that gay couples can independently conceive children. But the more interesting verse is the idea of God understanding and seeing a need for companionship (and a specific partnership), which seems kind of in conflict with the response that the only option for gay people is complete, lifelong celibacy. That seems kind of like a non-answer to me.  
  
http://www.cygnus-study.com/page8.shtml An article by a Reform Jew turned atheist, who makes the interesting point that homosexuality takes such a hit in this story, while father/daughter incest is apparently just fine.  
  
http://www.angelfire.com/biz7/greling/essay2.html More on the argument that homosexuality (especially of the consensual sort) has been imprinted on this story; it wasn't there to begin with.  
  
http://www.ldolphin.org/sodom.html An interesting, obviously Christian essay arguing that it is incorrect to use this story as an argument solely against homosexuality, and questioning the motives of Christians doing so. Quote: "God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance," says Paul--not His threats of impending doom and judgment."   
  
http://www.christianseparatist.org/briefs/sb1.11.html Exactly the kind of thing the previous author condemns. Also? Jews, by definition, not so much atheists. Whatever you might believe about people who don't believe in Christ, can anyone seriously say Jews don't believe in God? Do these people really expect me to listen to them when they say things like that? But, I guess I have to give him credit for coming straight (if you'll excuse the expression) out and saying that it would definitely be better for the crowd to rape his daughters than the angels, because sodomy is bad and apparently inherently medically injurious (okay, another example of a non-argument, since his explanation for that obviously doesn't prove that/. I mean, it's not like he provides a medical journal cite.)  
  
http://www.whosoever.org/v2i3/sodom.html An LBGT Christian interpretation. Heavily cross-referenced, and a more specific explanation of word choice and "to know."  
  
http://www.christiangay.com/he_loves/sodom.htm Another gay Christian site; this one focuses on the conflation of rape with consensual acts.  
  
http://kevincassell.com/PERSON/POLITICS/left/sodom.htm More story weirdness  
  
http://www.godhatesfags.com/ And this is love (do do do do)? They're keeping a tally for how many days Matthew Sheperd has been in hell and they have a http://www.godhatesfags.com/memorial.html "memorial": it's the among the sickest, mist self-serving thing I've ever seen, until I read that they're planning a "celebration of the 4th Anniversary of Matthew Shepard's entry into hell." A celebration. Don't tell me these Christians aren't taking pleasure in this. Don't tell me this page is about love. 


	3. Love, Lies and the Legacy You Gave Me

"When you say...you [gay Americans] are not a group of people who need special protection. You do well economically. You are an elite. That is precisely the argument that has been made in behalf of the worst kind of discrimination against Jewish people."   
- United States Senator Paul Wellstone, July 29, 1994 -  
Responding to a religious right spokesman's anti-gay testimony  
(http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/hitler/hitler.html)  
  
"The opportunity to be threatened, humiliated and to live in fear of being beaten to death is the only 'special right' our culture bestows on homosexuals."   
- Diane Carman, Denver Post  
  
So, I suppose what all this has eventually been leading me to is the idea that when Christians tell me I'm going to Hell, and that I'm depraved/unnatural/fill in the blank, they are being compassionate. They love me so much, that they just have to do this.   
  
Right.  
  
Let's examine a Chick tract with the self-proclaimed mission of providing a "compassionate plea to repent of homosexuality." Here's the link: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0273/0273_01.asp  
  
Now, I know perfectly well that not all Christians believe this; two of them are in my bedroom right now doing Arabic language drills and a physics problem set. But this still deserves a second look, and I need some better answers than I'm getting. So here we go.  
  
Panel 1: Wow, that's really evil of those people, to say "Hate is not a family value." I guess, if you teach "hate the sin, love the sinner," you do have to teach hate. From personal experience, all I can say is this is not a distinction I have great confidence in.   
  
As Tony Kushner says, " A lot of people worry these days about the death of civil discourse. The Pope, in his new encyclical, Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason), laments the death of civil discourse and cites "ancient philosophers who proposed friendship as one of the most appropriate contexts for sound philosophical inquiry." It's more than faintly ludicrous, this plea for friendship coming from the selfsame Pope who has tried so relentlessly to stamp out dissent in churches and Catholic universities, but let's follow the lead of the crazies who killed Matthew Shepard and take the Pope at his word.  
  
Friendship is the proper context for discussion. Fine and good. Take the gun away from my head, Your Holiness, and we can discuss the merits of homosexual sex, of homosexual marriage, of homosexual love, of monogamy versus promiscuity, of lesbian or gay couples raising kids, of condom distribution in the schools, of confidential counseling for teenagers, of sex education that addresses more than abstinence. We can discuss abortion, we can discuss anything you like. Just promise me two things, friend:   
  
First, you won't beat my brains out with a pistol butt and leave me to die by the side of the road. Second, if someone else, someone a little less sane than you, feeling entitled to commit these terrible things against me because they understood you a little too literally, or were more willing than you to take your distaste for me and what I do to its most full-blooded conclusion, if someone else does violence against me, friend, won't you please make it your business to make a big public fuss about how badly I was treated? Won't you please make a point, friend, you who call yourself, and who are called, by millions of people, the Vicar on Earth of the very gentle Jesus, won't you please in the name of friendship announce that no one who deliberately inflicts suffering, whether by violence or by prejudice, on another human being, can be said to be acting in God's name? And announce it so that it is very clear that you include homosexuals when you refer to "human beings," and announce it so that the world hears you, really hears you, so that your announcement makes the news, as you are capable of doing when it suits your purposes? Won't you make this your purpose too? And if you won't, if you won't take responsibility for the consequences of your militant promotion of discrimination, won't you excuse me if I think you are not a friend at all but rather a homicidal liar whose claim to spiritual and moral leadership is fatally compromised, is worth othing more than...well, worth nothing more than the disgusting, opportunistic leadership of Trent Lott." (http://www.ets.uidaho.edu/diversity/tkon.htm)   
  
As for the statistics, well, 12% is a rather high estimate; 1-2% seems awfully low. The truth is, since there's no way to "prove" who is homosexual (especially since we can't seem to agree on a definition), most studies simply aren't all that conclusive. Of course, one might ask why it matters, the pure numbers. But the supposed citation from this number -- well, I'll discuss Jeremiah Films in the next panel. Because that's where the hate really pours on.  
  
Panel 2: Wow. I'm almost speechless. But not quite.  
  
That is a hate-filled lie. I searched three different search engines and several college indexes, and I could not find a single confirmation of this event that is cited. I could not find a single militant site arguing that HIV-positive homosexuals should donate blood in a concentrated attempt to taint the national blood supply, or an article reporting such things being said at a rally, and I find it impossible to believe that this would not have been documented.  
  
And more than almost all the other things in this "discussion," that made me want to cry. That anyone could hate so much they would be willing to lie like that, and say something so clearly designed to incite hatred and violence.  
  
To try to move back into the realm of facts: currently, a man cannot give blood if he has had sexual contact with another man since 1977. Obviously, this is reliant on self-reporting, as are all the other questions asked when one gives blood. And some people have urged reversal of this ban, as it is too broad to be generally practical, in their opinions. Here's one article: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/bloodbanksPM000914.html  
They also argue that it is a question of politics, not based in science, to promote this ban and that it perpetuates false stereotypes. I don't feel like I have enough numbers to argue either way; I have given blood and will continue as long as I am still eligible to do so. Yeah, it's kind of irritating to think that I could be in a relationship with someone and have the blood tests to prove he's clean, while my neighbor could hook up with a different girl every night of the week and he could give blood while I couldn't, but it's not a battle I have that much energy for. Don't come crying to me when there's a blood shortage, then.  
  
It seems worth noting that a heterosexual who has had sex with someone known to be HIV-positive can donate blood a year later, while any man who has had intercourse with another man since 1977 cannot. The NIH has recommended the ban be lifted.   
  
And of course, money for AIDS is hardly a gay-specific cause. Face it: AIDS is no longer just a plague conveniently sent down to exterminate gay men. Or if it is, your God does really sloppy work, because AIDS has been a concern for the entire world for years. The cases in Africa alone are heart-rending, and the rate of infection continues to rise in heterosexual populations, and also among senior citizens (Newsweek did a story about this; it's troubling because it's a population that often has little education about safer sex and all of a sudden, these people find themselves single, start new relationships, and no one thought to do outreach to them).  
  
And I cannot believe that the amount of false information perpetrated by organizations like Jeremiah Films is part of the reason. It took some looking for me to get information on this source Mr. Chick is so fond of. This seems to be from the homepage: http://www.marianland.com/jeremiah002.html  
  
So, I drifted down to the title "Gay Rights, Special Rights."   
  
I'd like an explanation now, please. Basically, I would like legal protection to a) not be murdered, beaten or verbally harassed and b) to be able to do the kinds of things heterosexuals take for granted, like not be arbitrarily passed over for a job, or possibly to be able to obtain legal protection for myself and someone I might choose to spend my life with, should I find such a person. What's so freakin' special about that? Because I keep hearing that we gays, in promoting our "homosexual agenda" are asking for special rights. Why is it normal for everyone else, but special for me? Can you really say with a straight face that it's unreasonable for me not to want some guy in a WWJD shirt to smash in my kneecap? Or to want him to actually be punished when he did so? Oh, that doesn't really happen, it's all propaganda. Seriously, I wouldn't have made that story up, it's too creepy. WWJD indeed.  
  
" THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA IS A THREAT TO YOU...YOUR FAMILY... YOUR COUNTRY! Homosexuality is only 1% of this nations population, yet our freedom, basic morality, constitutional values, basic welfare and even our CHILDREN are under constant attack by this indulgence oriented group... Homosexuality is targeting our youth by preying on their vulnerability. Homosexuals are redefining the family to include all forms of sexual preference and perversion... Homosexuals have demanded that the 1964 Civil Rights Act be amended to make "sexual preference" a constitutionally protected right! Your church, business and school will be forced to employ homosexuals, bisexuals, transgenders, or those who practice pedophilia." (sic to all that)  
  
Well, 1% is a stupid, unsupported estimate. And there's a lot of awfully vague incitement here; note they aren't saying anything specific until the end. We're what with the what now? Now, before I get all teary again, I believe churches have successfully obtained legal permission to avoid hiring homosexuals. Why businesses and schools should have this right, I don't know, unless you want to argue that businesses should have a totally free hand in hiring, and thus be allowed not to hire any member of a minority as they see fit, which is part of why the 1964 Act came about in the first place -- because that argument was used to institutionalize racism.  
  
Oh, apparently this guy does: http://www.christianviewpoint.com/html/homosexuality.html  
Seriously, what does he think people are supposed to document? If you think the mere presence of a gay person is disruptive, than maybe you're the one obsessed with sex.  
  
And then -- wow, I can't believe how much this is getting to me tonight, because it isn't like I haven't heard it before. But this is another one of those hateful lies. Pedophilia and homosexuality are not comparable at all! In fact, in my research, homosexuals tend to be much more vigilant than heterosexuals about insisting that sexual activity is best kept between consenting adults. Pedophilia is yet another form of sex as a weapon, just as rape is, and it has NOTHING to do with a consensual relationship. And for that matter, lots of people convicted of same-sex pedophiliac encounters were identified as heterosexual; married men with children, in many cases. This returns to the question of what makes someone homosexual, I suppose. But it is a gross, libelous and hurtful insult to see someone make that comparison with absolutely no back-up or apology. And Mr. Chick himself will do it later, we see.   
  
Yes, of course there are fringe elements in any group. But most of us have nothing to do with them. There are lots of instances of heterosexual child molestation, yet no one assumes it is inherent in heterosexuality that this happens. Nor, for that matter, do they assume that rape is a natural consequence of men and women having sex, or draw comparisons between such incidents and what happens in a consensual, healthy heterosexual relationship. Or what about all the commercials that use adolescent girls to sell their products? I can't think of anything in America that's more fetishized than a Catholic school girl, except maybe a cheerleader. What about all the romantic comedies featuring a barely-legal girl and a man twenty years her senior? Apparently, there's at least one page featuring a clock counting down to the exact moment that the Olsen twins cease to become jailbait. Fine for you, a big joke, but not when it's us?  
  
Wasn't Jesus kind of down on hypocrites?   
  
And why should I take seriously the testimony of a faith whose representatives regularly lie?  
  
  
The other video of interest is the "educational" video about AIDS put out by this company. Apparently the most notorious segment involves a boy in a sex-ed class asking "What if I want to have sex before I get married?" The teacher replies, "Well, I guess you just have to be prepared to die. And you'll probably take with you your spouse and one or more of your children with you."  
  
God, this is just reprehensible. Now, the "safe/safer" sex debate is mostly semantics; obviously, the only way to guarantee avoidance of all possible complications of pregancy is abstinence. But for some reason, the abstinence only movement, which is deeply affiliated with the religious right, doesn't trust anyone to make their own choices, and so they have started the rumor that any kind of contraception is simply useless, which is just silly. You're a lot safer having sex with a condom, especially one properly put on (which most people don't know how to do), and if pregnancy is a concern, you can also use spermicide, and you can furthermore use another, non-barrier method of contraception (i.e, birth control pills). And yes, it reduces the chance of getting AIDS. Eliminates no, reduces yes. This is worth knowing. Information is power.   
  
http://www.siecus.org/advocacy/reviews/revi0008.html   
  
More lies. More selective truth-telling. And pure fear tactics.  
  
Oh yeah, I was supposed to be writing about the Chick tract, right?  
  
Panel 3: Oh, sell your martyr complex somewhere else. Like Christians have never taken an angry, hateful approach to their positions. Has everyone forgotten Jerry Falwell's post-9/11 remarks? Or Pat Robertson's "godly fumigation"? Or Randall Terry saying " I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is a Christian nation,"? Or Fred Phelps picketing at Matthew Shepard's funeral, while his family was trying to mourn and say good-bye, and the little girl carrying the sign that said "fags=anal sex" into the memorial service? You don't see the irony here?  
  
Panel 4: Gee, for once a Chick tract gay guy with a semi-decent haircut. What's up with that?  
  
Panel 6: Well,that didn't last. Is that why you guys don't like us -- the only gay people you know are a cross between the Village People and Mr. T?  
  
Panel 10: Dah-dah-dah! Cue scary music! Seriously, is there a reason God wasn't paying attention to Sodom (or the town to be named Sodom at a later date) during all this?  
  
Panel 12: Lot's sleazy.  
  
Panel 13: Okay, this is where I start to wonder about Mr. Chick. This is just so oddly lurid. I found a very funny article about a guy whose first exposure to homosexuality was actually in a Chick tract; ironic, huh? (http://www.postfun.com/pfp/features/98/feb/jtchick.html)  
But since Jack Chick likes so many stereotypes, couldn't he at least make us stylish? What is up with that hairstyle? I mean, I'm no high fashion expert (and for the record, I hate shoe-shopping), but that's just bizarre. It looks like a clown wig.  
  
Panel 14: Hmm, how come we don't here more about Lot's distress in the actual, original account? Revisionism, much? More bad hair, and fake swearing, this time around.  
  
Panel 15: Oh, God, here we go again. Note that he doesn't have a Biblical verse to back this up. After all, it's stretching to even find the homosexuality idea, but it doesn't say anything about pedophilia. Creative license, huh? That's just sick and wrong, that he can just make this up. We're the hateful ones?  
  
Panel 17: Is God in the tent? That's just poorly laid out. It's like those TV shows where someone looks up all dramatically and says "Thank you," and then the camera zooms up, so it looks like God lives in a florescent lamp in a coffee shop in Jersey. 7th Heaven does this all the time (well, GlenOak, not Jersey, but whatever). God's in the trunk of my car, man!  
  
Panel 20: That's some bad dialogue, folks. I think Mr. Chick is stretching awfully far from his text, but oh well.  
  
Panel 22: Wow, no sense of irony there! How is this not offensive to people?  
  
Panel 24: Um, when did they call Lot a bigot? They ripped on him for ordering them around, when he was a stranger to their city. We do this in America all the time (love it or leave it, woo hoo!). Oh, he's drawing a parallel to the homosexual agenda, when we arrest people and put them on trial for making homophobic statements. Except, no we don't, unless they have violated some other law. It's just like school prayer -- by not allowing you to use my time and money to declare your religious beliefs, I'm somehow taking away your religious freedom. Never mind that you can pray to yourself whenever you want, wherever you want -- it doesn't count unless you get to enforce it on other people.   
  
Panel 30: I'm still not convinced as to why this is a good thing.  
  
Panel 32: I'm surprised he only refers to that, not the New Testament citations, because in Leviticus God also demands blood sacrifices, and gives very specific instructions as to how to do that; as far as I know, modern fundamentalists aren't doing this. It also makes some errors in animal classifications (hares, insects and bats), offers a somewhat unorthodox treatment for leprosy, and designates menstruating women as so unclean they must reside separately from the men during this time (of course, this was probably easier when everyone was basically on the same schedule). He explains how to make a literal scapegoat (as opposed to using us gay folk), and don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric (shopping at Wal-mart is probably out, then). If a man rapes a female slave, she gets killed, but he doesn't, because she was a slave. And disrespectful children get put to death. I'm sure you've heard all this before, but you either follow the letter of the law, or the spirit, and I don't see why Leviticus 18:22 or 21:13 get a free ride.  
  
Panel 34: Mommy, why is that men leering at me? That's a strangely lustful look in his eyes. And again, go sell martyrdom somewhere else. Did anyone in this crowd actually assault this guy in any way?  
  
Panel 36: That seems to me to be rather a capricious quoting of John 3:16. It's a horrible paraphrase; if someone pulled a stunt like that in a paper and the professor checked, they'd get raked over the coals. John 3:16 is actually a very beautiful and lyrically translated verse; Jack Chick doesn't want me to like anything about Christianity, I guess.  
  
Panel 37: Eh, his haircut's pretty bad after all. There'll be no more Supercuts franchises in heaven, Sean! But at least he didn't do the version of the prayer where he looks like he's about to be violated, like in so many of these things.  
  
That was actually kind of fun. Then I found this nifty piece. http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0084/0084_01.asp  
First of all, what's with the profile on the cover? That makes me take you seriously. Saturday Night Live does more thoughtful social commentary than that with those "Ambigously Gay Duo" cartoons.  
  
Panel 1-5: More bad haircuts. Really bad, in panel 4. As for the wedding, is that supposed to be a priest? I didn't think priests did that, although various Protestant ministers do. He could be Episcopalian, I guess. As for Panel 5, I don't think it's a "joke" to anyone. For some of us, it's a matter of life and death.   
  
Panel 6: That commentary made so little sense. But again, it's nice that Jack Chick knows so little about us that he thinks we dress like 1970s rodeo clowns on crack, yet presumes to know how tragic our lives are, and how we lust endlessly. You know, a lot of televangelists and conservative Christian politicians have had extramarital affairs. Lust is for everyone!  
  
Panel 7: Why the quotes? I don't get it. Anyway, "common" is kind of a stretch. Woo hoo, Will and Grace and the one character on Dawson's Creek who never has sex.  
  
Panel 8 and 9: Yeah, wanting equal protection under the law and being productive members of society. We are ee-vil.  
  
Panel 10: Note that he cites no such "reliable" study.  
  
Panel 11: Well, those were poorly trained archaeologists! I have trouble believing that an early 20th century archaeologist would never have studied ancient Greece, and thus inevitably encountered homosexuality before. It's pretty straightforward, no pun intended. And what evidence is he showing, exactly? Two guys freaked out at seeing some evidence of "gayness." Okay.   
  
Panel 12: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Careless.  
  
Panel 14-15: There's that violation posture. Jack Chick uses it a lot. But Lot is a lot less sleazy looking in this version.  
  
Panel 16: The woman is shown at a really odd angle, for no reason I can imagine other than to emphasize her breasts.   
  
Panel 17: Okay, the word "gay" is so not in the Bible. This is just so sloppy.  
  
Panel 19: Nifty, with the little parenthetical. Been there, done that.  
  
Panel 20: Still not with the irony -- poor girls. That really gets to me. I'm used to being hated, for the most part, but the fact that the hero of this morality tale offers his daughters to be raped is just incomprehensible to me.  
  
Panel 24: That picture is again oddly lurid. Mr. Chick never misses a chance to show those, does he?  
  
Panel 26: As if! Take the offensive? What laws are these? We still aren't protected by civil rights legislation in most places, let alone the issue of marriage. Anti-hate crime laws cover things that are already crimes; they just argue that there is something particularly despicable about assaulting someone for a basic element of their identity. Seriously, I want a citation here.  
  
Panel 27: It was the early Christians who messed this up? Okay. Not all gay men are effeminate; we don't all lisp and shuffle and like Barbie dolls. Nor do we have some special affinity with women, for that matter; I guess maybe we share some understanding on certain issues (without getting into a gender studies sidebar about oppression), but it isn't as if we're all really women trapped in men's bodies. I find football tedious, but like I said, I find shoe-shopping pretty awful, too.  
  
Panel 28-29: Again with the creepy breast angle.   
  
Panel 30: Citation for life expectancy, please?  
  
Panel 31: Again with the recruiting nonsense. Really, who has the time?  
The rest of this is pretty standard Chick fare, including his creepy portraits of God. Oh, well.   
  
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0084/0084_01.asp  
  
I'm not going through this one panel by panel. But on the topic of AIDS, it is relevant, because the spread of this kind of misinformation is hateful. I think that the doctor in this story is behaving criminally negligently and possibly has committed the crime of "depraved indifference." If this were true, I would be filing complaints with every medical organization I could find.  
  
Because it is wicked to take away hope like that, and this doctor is LYING in order to manipulate a frightened teenager. I'm not trying to minimize the horrors of AIDS, but there is hope. People have lived for YEARS in good health while on medication, and new treatments are being developed every year. Is the implication here really that doctors shouldn't offer medical help to AIDS patients? How despicable! What a lie! Suzie is not "dying," she is living with a disease, and there is support, treatment and information available. As someone who now lives with a permanent disability, and is very close to someone who has a chronic disease that requires constant monitoring, I am utterly disgusted by this entire tract. Furthermore, I volunteer at a children's AIDS hospice, so I think I have a right to be offended by this kind of manipulation and lies. Oh, but right, I forgot, I'm a pedophile and pervert, and obviously that's why I color with dying five year olds. Think about what you say, please.  
  
But if you can scare someone, why not lie? One of the most amusing of all Chick tracts may be the one about rock n' roll, which also includes an AIDS reference. Satan gives a musician AIDS as a "punishment" for getting married, and he dies in three months. Now, in the early days of AIDS, it was a virtual death sentence, and help wasn't available, in large part because it was seen as isolated to gay men (Randy Shilts' "As the Band Played On," and the subsequent miniseries are considered sort of the Bible on this issue). But that's just not true today, in a lot of cases, and I think it is a terrible sin for people to lie like that in an effort to convert people.  
  
So, why does all of this matter, anyway?   
  
Because you are alienating us, every time you lie, every time you call us names, every time you spread false information, and every time you refuse to answer our questions with honest, respectful responses. You are pushing us further and further away from God, and you dare to claim you tell these lies and wield these weapons and dwell on our damnation out of love.   
  
And when you say these things? You bear the stain of the more than 2000 assaults against gays and lesbians that take place every year in the land of the free and the home of the brave, because you have contributed to the mindset that leads to these crimes. You have presumed to give arrogant answers to situations you have never faced, you have compared us to violent criminals and called us less than human, you have used us as the scapegoat for everything God hates. Is it really a surprise when this leads someone to violence?   
  
I could say I hope you burn in Hell. But the truth is, I don't. I can't even think about Hell; I've been at deathbeds, and I've been in a coma, and I can't comprehend the idea of eternal suffering. I will never understand why so many Christians have made such a little, little God. I can love better than your God.   
  
And I think I will. 


End file.
